J.D. Martin earns the first of hopefully many wins in his career

Sunday afternoon’s win was a big one.  Not because it marked the sweep of the Arizona Diamondbacks.  Not because it was the eighth in a row for the surging Nationals.  No, Sunday’s win was a big one because it was a day of firsts for some of the Nats’ “young” rookies.  J.D. Martin earned his first career win by going five strong innings, allowing only one run, coincidentally to the first(there’s that theme again) batter he faced via a leadoff home run to Trent Oeltjen.  It was his best outing of the year.  Just to keep making this post read like a bad episode of Sesame Street, Martin also collected his first hit of his career at the plate.

Now this couldn’t just be about a 26 year old rookie pitcher collecting his first win could it?  That wouldn’t be worth my time or yours.  How about this then?  Sunday’s win also marked the first career hit for 29 year old career minor leaguer Jorge Padilla.  He spent eleven long years in the minors, carving out an impressive resume, before getting his chance in the majors last Wednesday against the Florida Marlins.   In his third game since being called up, Padilla finally delivered with a pinch hit in the bottom of the sixth inning.  Unfortunately he was robbed of his first career run scored when he was forced out at the plate on a Ryan Zimmerman fielders choice.  While it may have just been a single, it’s a great accomplishment for a guy who’s largely been an afterthought for his entire career.  He’s so much of an afterthought that ESPN.com actually lists him as Juan Padilla in the game recap.  Hopefully Padilla will get plenty of opportunities to make ESPN’s editors and fact checkers take the time to get his name right.

It’s safe to say that by the time the season ends, nobody will remember Sunday’s win apart from any other win.  Nobody except J.D. Martin and Jorge Padilla that is.

Friday night, the Nats stroll Garrett Mock out onto the mound for his second start of the year against Padres super prospect Mat Latos, who also is making his second start.  Mock has struggled mightily this year both in starting and relief roles with the big league club, but he did show some improvement when he went down to the minors.  The Nationals best shot at a win is to jump on Latos early and rattle the rookie.

The pitching doesn’t get much better on Saturday when J.D. Martin makes his second start of the season after being lit up in his first start last week.  Thankfully for Nats fans, the Padres are also throwing out a rarely used started in Tim Stauffer.  Stauffer has looked alright in the early going posting impressive strikeout numbers and keeping opponents batting a dreadful .156 through two starts.

Sunday’s game however should be the gem of the series with John Lannan hoping to continue his strong pitching of late.  Lannan is fresh off a complete game shutout of the Mets in what was probably the best start of his career.  Lannan faces off against Chad Gaudin, who has been San Diego’s leader in strikeouts but not much else. 

All in all, this weekend series against the Padres looks to be a snoozer in which neither team will look too impressive.  The key to winning this series will be taking advantage of the weak pitching and getting on the scoreboard early and often.